I am so sorry for your pain. I suspect much of this comes from a place of helplessness and anger. Anger NOT at you, but at the fates. After all, you work, play by all the rules and then when the good stuff is supposed to happen...live interrupts.

Life will get better. You are describing people with good core who feel out of control. But I send you hugs...and wishes for peace.

Remember that when people are angry, they say what they know will hurt the most. It's not right, but it is what it is. Hopefully for the sake of your children cooler heads will prevail. Stress makes it hard to think straight, but a little distance and space may be just the thing to bring back family peace.

Well, husband graduated. The ceremony was awesome! I was very sad in-laws did NOT show up. I know hub told them not to come.... but a small part of me thought they would anyway. Nope. :(

Regardless, we had an awesome time! :)

Glad it was a good time. The in-laws will regret it later. It's like cutting off your nose to spite your face (or "spider face" if you're a fan of The Office.)

I would have taken the money and married him anyway. ;)

My FILs are very nice people but we have nothing in common except their son. They keep saying they don't know me - we've been together for almost 7 years! What's left to know?

Mine has invited herself to be present at the birth of my baby. Expects to be called right away when I'm admitted and will stay throughout the delivery and right through my discharge and then spend a few days here with us.

Uh-huh. You go right on believing that. It ain't gonna happen.

for the first time ever I did not manically clean before my in-laws visted last week. I cleaned the room they were to stay in, changed the sheets & blankets and kept the door closed to keep the cats out, but other than that, nothing special. No dusting and crazy vacuuming. I was waiting for my OCD FIL to say something, and the strangest thing happened- he didn't say a word about it. he sat on the floor and played with the kids and didn't comment about the clutter or the dirty laundry or anything.

he did offer to buy dinner out both nights, but I was cool with that because I didn't really have time to cook anyway!

My hospital allows up to 3 people but I have invited no one other than my hubby. Why she's assuming she's automatically on the list is beyond me. My hubby has even told her absolutely not but it's in one ear and out the other.

I am getting close to becoming a mother in law. I really like the so of all my kids. Heck, I'll admit to loving them.

And I can't wait to become a grandmother! So, speaking as a potential grandmother: Bette...when I was in labor my mother came to the hospital to see me. Things weren't going well (everything turned out fine, just took a long time). I knew that if my mother came into the room I'd lose it. (I loved my mother very much.) The nurse said that she would take care of it. She told my mother that there was a new rule, only husband or so in the room.

I can't wait to become a grandmother. If my daughters want me in the room...I'm there. If my dil invites me in.....I'm there. If not...I'll be doing what every Jewish grandmother does: shopping for the baby. (It's considered "bad Luck" to outfit a nursery prior to the birth...in Jewish tradition. No worries, everything that I would have put on hold will be getting picked up.)

Only invite whom you want to have in labor/delivery. If not being asked...let the nurse do the dirty work.

...if you have asked said nurse if he or she minds doing the dirty work and they have said they do not and offer to assist. ;)

I called the hospital and specifically my friend who is the Marketing Director at the hospital and she said that we can in fact request the nurses not let anyone that isn't hospital staff enter the delivery and recovery room until we give them the o.k. I'll turn to that if no other option presents itself. Well, the other option is not calling her until after baby is born. Lol! ;)

Live-in's mom has made comments to the effect of being there for all of that type of stuff. She once said "I can't wait to take you wedding dress shopping, you know, since your mom won't be there."

While I appreciate that she loves me and wants me and Live-in to be married and happy together (and I really do appreciate it - she is not short on love or annoying habits), pairing it with a "since your mom won't be there" was like punching me in the gut. That was a few years ago now, and I'm hoping that she's picked up on the fact that mentioning my mom or things we can do together since my mom isn't around is something that makes me shut down completely.

I worry though, that she'll say something like "since your mom won't be there" in regard to labor/babies. I might have to pull out with "the only non-doctor/nurse in the room I want seeing my vulva is Live-in, since he had to see it to get me into this mess anyway."

I know, right. Sentimentalist that I am, I watch "A Baby Story" episodes on TLC? It's amazing how many times you see whole families, relatives all up in the delivery room. More than once I've seen somebody's brother-in-law with a camera phone over the doctor's shoulder and dude is rolling tape like he's Speilberg or Spike Lee or something.

As conceptually beautiful as it is, childbirth is stressful enough. When my daughters were born, the nurse was like "grab her leg and gently push back."

I was like "no, no, no. Believe me, I'm just fine way up here by her ear and collarbone." :)

I only had my now ex husband in the delivery room with the birth of both kids. We called when the babies were born. The family came to the hospital the next morning to see the baby. With kidlet #1 about 6 am the day after I came home I heard rustling around the house. My FIL had shown up to play with the baby. WTF???? We were all still sleeping. With kidlet #2, we knew he was going to be born real sick and need surgery as soon as he was born. I made it clear to everyone that they were not to come visit until the next day. I was having a C-section and then baby was off to surgery-- that was more than enough stress for anyone. As they were rolling me into my room from recovery, my FIL am came strolling into my room. Social services had sent someone to greet us when we arrived in the room to help us through the stress and she saw me become visibly upset as FIL came in before I was even settled. Told now ex to get his father out of the room. The clueless man ended up staying 5 hours until baby came out of surgery and then felt it was his place to begin questioning the surgeon. GRRRRRR. Luckily, he is no longer my FIL.

DaffyKD